The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 228: Good Question

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

Chuck crashes Thanksgiving at Mike's house, fails to book a proper guest, and relies instead on listeners to pose interesting questions for Mike to answer. The listeners come through, as always.

Do do do do do do do. Dumb. Is it weird to love people but despise human resources? If so, well, color me weird. It's not to say I don't respect the millions of people who work in HR departments and companies all over the country. I do. It's just that I don't envy him. That's why MicroWorks doesn't have an HR department for better or worse.

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This one's called Good Question. Good question. And my guest today is, wait for it. Nobody. Actually, that's not fair. My guest is Chuck Klausmeier, the producer of this so-called podcast, who agreed one year ago this week to help me expand the format of our little show into whatever it is now. If you're not hanging on to every word and every post on my Facebook page, you probably missed my invitation before Thanksgiving to submit your podcast-related. questions so that the aforementioned Chuck can ask them to me and I can answer them for you. That's what's about to happen on this, the week after Thanksgiving, on our little podcast. Is it lazy? Possibly. Is it indulgent, perhaps? Is it entertaining? You bet it's entertaining.

These are your questions, after all, followed by my answers, and together they are. Episode 228 of the way I heard it. man i can't believe it's been a year chuck it's been a year since you were sitting in that very spot in my kitchen over the thanksgiving break where we took it upon ourselves to blow the podcast up we didn't blow it up we just changed it that's all we blew it up we blew it up man we did something i swore i would never do i fundamentally broke the promise what the ad guys would call the single-minded proposition what is the way i'm I heard it, right? Five years ago, it was the number one short form podcast in the world of

Podcastlandia. It was a collection of stories for the curious mind with a short attention span. And now, here we are. The average episode is 90 minutes long. And we're just blathering away. It's two dudes talking. Yeah. Sometimes three. And I thought, you know what? I'm never going to do that because I just don't want to be one of those guys who just sits here. And answers questions and interviews people and somehow justifies that as both meaningful and important. I was wrong, wrong, wrong. There is a way to make this ridiculous format, both meaningful and important and monetizable. God bless us everyone. Well, let me ask you this. One of the things, a lot of people wrote in questions and asked some of the things that were repeated were, are there

going to be new stories? Are you going to write in the style that you wrote before? Will we hear any new five-minute mysteries? Now, is it repeated or repeated? And I don't ask this as a pedant, but you have been correcting me for the last three days on virtually every topic. Chuck is visiting, as he does most every Thanksgiving, and reestablishing his identity as an unapologetic pedant. And now here you are hitting me with repeat, as opposed to repeat. Well, I mean, it's the difference between TV and TV. TV, like T-E-E-E-Hip and V-E-E.

You know, people in like the Midwest from Chicago, I know a lot of people from Chicago who call it TV. I saw you on the TV. Yeah, I saw you on the TV. That's right. Or I saw you on the TV. That's the way I said it. That's the way we said it growing up.

TV. That's right. TV, TV or TV. People in the Midwest say TV. So I saw you on the TV. Repeated or repeated. Never mind. Tomato tomato.

The answer is, I will never say never. Some days I miss writing those stories. I just heard something the other day that made me want to go, oh, I need to write that story. Remember, we were listening to the same podcast as we were walking along. Yes. And it was a story about a con man whose name was John as. Wendell. I'm like, that's where we got the word. I'm not saying that's where we got the word swindle, but when your name is the thing that you do, there's a very specific term for that,

and I've forgotten what it is, but I wanted to do a story about a con man whose name was John S. Swindle, because his name's John Swindle, really, when you jam it all together. And I thought, I should sit down and write a fun eight-minute story about that guy. But I didn't. for the same reason I haven't written any new stories in several months now. We're busy. There's a lot of stuff going on. And happily, this new format for the podcast has allowed us to stay in this world. Which really, Chuck, you know, this is one of the few worlds that's growing.

Publishing is shrinking. TV is contracting. Radio's back is against the wall. And so I just thought five years ago, we need to be in this space. I don't know exactly how or why or what I'm going to do, but I just felt like we need. needed to be here. And so this is where we are, five years in, you sitting up at my kitchen table, me down here in the basement, because for some reason we can't be across from each other, because the audio issues continue to vex me, and that is unfortunate. But yeah, we've got a

terrific audience, and this is fun to do with you, and I'm grateful for the chance to do it, and happy to answer whatever questions you have called together from the Facebook post that's now been up roughly 48 hours. And I assume we have more than a few questions to get to. There are probably more than we'll be able to get to, but let's try and blaze through some. Let's start with Teresa Sherman who says, I love the longer version. Thank you, Teresa. What is the concept used to decide on changing formats? Yeah, so it wasn't a concept.

It was a real simple choice. We either stop the podcast or we evolve. And I didn't want to evolve. I just thought, look, I wrote 180 short stories. I'm proud of most of them. I'm proud of all of them, but I'm delighted with a lot of them. And I didn't want to start doing crappy ones. So I just thought, look, we've been doing it four years.

That's enough. Let's just stop. But then, like I said, the space was expanding. And I didn't want to not be in this space, but I didn't have the time to write short stories. It's the old Mark Twain quote, right? I'm sorry this letter is so long. If I had more time, it would have been shorter. The thing is, Teresa, about writing is that the shorter it is, the more time it takes, the more difficult it is.

This longer format, this guest spontaneous back and forth, this is something I enjoy doing. I just didn't think I wanted to be a part of it because, frankly, I thought it was kind of lazy. It's not. It still takes a ton of effort. It's gratifying in a different way. And so the logic behind the choice was really very practical. It was either do this or wrap the whole thing up. And I didn't want to wrap it up. Evolve or die. Pivot or perish. Alliteration almost always annoys, Charles, as we've discussed. But Pivot or Parish is exactly what the lockdowns were.

It's what Zoom TV was. I cursed it. I curse this. I hate being stuck in this box here talking to people. But it's so much better than dying. We're not doing anything. That was the concept, Teresa. We played the cards we got.

Great. This question is a good one to follow that up with from Jenna Clark. She says, how many hours a week do you put into creating each podcast? And so I think the way to properly answer this is then versus now kind of. Yeah. You know? Well, how many hours would you say before and how many hours now? It's hard to know when the process of writing a story begins, right?

I mean, does it start when you sit down and open your computer and start hitting the keys? Or does it start when you hear a story of a story? You know, you, it's like we were saying. Somebody tells me a random tale about a guy named John S. Wendell. And suddenly I want to write a story about Swindle. So I need to think about that for a while. Sometimes for a couple hours, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months. Sometimes a notion gets in your brain like a, what did Morpheus say in the Matrix?

Like a splinter in your mind. And it just festers. And then a story comes out months later. And so did that take months to write? Other times, I've literally written a story in an hour that's wound up on the podcast the next day. And partly because I had a deadline and I had to and partly sometimes they just come easy. This format's very different.

You have more responsibility now. You have to find a guest. Yes. You have to handle the technology. There's uploading. There's downloading. There's audio. There's sponsors.

There's this company we're in business now called Audio Boom, who's been terrific. And now they're handling some of that. There's expectations. There's downloads. There's ratings. There's rankings. This episode, for instance, started as a goof the other day when you said, hey, look, we're 147. And I'm like, wow, we're going to celebrate.

We're number 147. Never mind Win Placer's show. We're 147, which sounds terrible. until you look at the universe, which has grown to 2.4 million podcasts. So we're actually in the top, top, top tier. We have a seat at the podcast table. We have a great, reliable audience. Well, I'm trying to compliment you, Jackass,

because you kept this thing on the rails. I would have walked away a year ago, right? Because we had multiple TV shows going. There were all sorts of, we were busy. But you said, look, man, it's really, really hard to find an audience. audience, as if you would know. But I know you were right. It's hard to find an audience and it's hard to keep an audience. And the fact that we have one means I want to stay in podcast landia. And if that means the format continues to evolve, fine. But the answer to the question is,

it probably takes about as much time now as it did before. It's just the duties are spread out among more people. It takes less time for me, more time for you. Yes. More time for our office to coordinate all the other stuff. That's the case. Yeah. Yes. But in actual hours, it's over 30 in a week for sure. Wow. I told you that time when I was in North Carolina and we did the episode, it was the one with Michael Orkin. Yeah. And that was two 17 hour days because we had some technical issues. Yeah. And the editing took a very, very long time. Yeah. But that's what it is now. Now we have an editor who's helping us, which is great. Ross is great.

Ross is putting in a lot of hours. But it's still a thing. Nothing worth doing ever is easy. And the long history of the world. Shortcuts leads to long delays. You can be efficient. You can be effective. You can always find a better way to do it.

But if it's worth doing, it's not going to be easy. Next question. Cassandra Herbert Dixon. Wow. If you were able to have any deceased celebrity history maker, inventor, artist, etc. On the podcast as a guest, who would it be and why?

Hmm. Boy, that's a good one. Anybody in the world or anybody that we featured on the podcast were written about. She's just saying anybody. Anybody, yeah. Deceased celebrity history maker,

inventor, anybody. Yeah, I got it. Well, I have a feeling. It's a toss-up for me, but Abraham Lincoln is near the top of the list. You tell you. too? Yes, yes, exactly. That's so funny. I'd go with Lincoln or Edison. Thomas Edison I'd love

to talk to. That's Wendler? Yeah, actually. Look, Thomas Edison has made all of our lives demonstrably better with his many inventions, but that guy, he was a son of a gun, man. And when I say son of a gun, you know what I mean. Look at me being all G-rated. He was a bastard. He was litigious. He was a copyright whore, he borrowed heavily from guys like Hiram Maxim, who was every bit the inventor, from Tesla. It'd be interesting to talk to a guy who was so inventive and at the same time, so litigious. And I say this is a compliment. I do admire the empire that he built.

Because how many inventors have we featured on the podcast who failed, who gave us something great, but who were unknown? the real McCoy literally changed WD 40 guy yeah WD 40 so many inventors who failed to get the patent

right the guy who invented the screw right Phillips the Phillips screw well it wasn't Phillips yeah it was the guy who invented the Phillips

that's right Thompson Phillips was the guy who bought it for a song the guy who sold it the guy who marketed it right so the point is

yeah it's easy to fall in with an inventor and we featured a lot of them on the show but their inventions without PR, without marketing, without investment. They're just prototypes that never go anywhere. Edison was real good at watching his own back so I'd love to talk to him and of course Lincoln has been the subject of three or four stories that I've written. Yeah. And I didn't even realize it until the fourth one. I didn't realize it until a story called broadswords in a pit. that I was kind of obsessed with this guy. And part of the reason is current events,

part of the reason is our country is so divided, and I so wish we had somebody with his or her hands on the levers who had the character of Abraham Lincoln and the vision of Abraham Lincoln and the courage and the strength and the common sense. He was just a remarkable guy, flawed, obviously, a man of his time, as we all are. but also so far ahead of his time.

God, the questions I would have for him would be endless. And also, Chuck, I would love to have him on just to hear his voice because... Well, I hear he was kind of up here. Reedy, high-pitched, thin, squeaky. When I think of the Gettysburg Address, I hear Edward Everett's voice. I hear James Earl Jones' voice. Hell, I hear my voice, right? I want to hear four score and seven years ago,

our forefathers brought forth to this land and this continent, a new nation. But now he was, somebody said the other day, listening to Lincoln talk back then was not so different than listening to someone today who had inhaled a mouthful of helium. Like one of the chipmunks. High, reedy, impossibly unpersuasive. And yet even with a voice like, that. His words live on. So yeah, that's my answer. Lincoln, and if he was, if he's unavailable,

Edison. All right. I'm going to stick with Lincoln all the way, number one. Melissa Fletchell Ham. No. Fletchell. Right? F-L-E-T-H-A-L-L-L. F-T-H-A-L-L. F-T-L. All right. Let's just go with Melissa. Melissa says, what are your favorite? podcasts or types of podcasts. Great question. I make a point to listen to Joe Rogan, partly because so many other people do, partly because I can't believe he gets away with it. I can't believe four times a week. He sits down and talks to people for three, three and a half hours. What he's done, say what you want about the guy. He's said and done plenty of things to offend plenty of different types

of people. But I admire him immensely for 10 years ago, just deciding he was going to talk to the people he wanted to talk to, the way he wanted to talk to them. He was ahead of that curve in a huge way. And today, the breadth of things he does on his podcast, yeah, it can be silly. You know, he's an eight-year-old from time to time. He's said and done a lot of things that I know a lot of people look out of scantz. but he's also had on some of the most important leaders in the country. He's on the cutting edge of conversations around the virus, around the lockdowns, around the headlines of our time. His leaders of countries waiting to be on his podcast.

I think that's laudable. And for that reason, I check his out once, sometimes twice a week. My favorite right now is not really a podcast. It's more of a, it's a YouTube channel with Rick Beato. Rick Biato, Chuck, right? Maybe we should have him on here. Because Rick... I would love to, yeah.

If you're not listening to this guy, he's the ultimate music insider. He can play virtually any instrument. He has an enormous brain. He understands musical theory as well as anybody I've ever seen. His appreciation for Bach is no less interesting and compelling as his appreciation for Led Zeppelin. or Jimmy Hendricks. It doesn't matter. And his podcast, or the series I most enjoy is called What Makes This Song Great,

he takes about a half hour on each episode, and he unpacks a song that you've heard, could be from Boston. I just listen to one from Chicago. He takes 25 of 6 to 4 apart, plays you the vocals, plays you the guitar, plays you the drums, It just explains why you love the song.

He's credible. He's smart. And all of the music, we're about the same age. So it's the music I grew up with. It's just, I'm a music fan, and I love to hear people who really, really, really, truly understand what they're talking about. Stay in their lane and just make me feel smarter

about something I was already interested in. I don't think anybody's doing it better than that. Hardcore history is great with Dan Korn. Harlan, if you're a history fan, like Rogan, he'll take a deep dive, three-hour podcast. He's not a historian. He's just a huge fan of history. He's great. Love to have him on too, Chuck. Make a note, would you? Yeah, he's on the list. This is not a terribly exciting podcast, but there are two guys who I really enjoy reading over on the National Review, Kevin Williamson and a guy named Charles Cook. They write great columns. Forget the politics. Forget the politics.

of it. They're sometimes on opposite ends of a topic, but they just have a real, real casual hang once a week or so called Mad Dogs and Englishman. Charles has an English guy over here, and Kevin, Kevin Williams has a great story, has a column called The Tuesday. He was fired from the Atlantic a few years ago, got on the wrong side of the whole cancel culture thing. He does great work too. It's a mixed bag for me, but those are the four I listened to over the break. Do do do do do dumb. Well, are you sick of it yet? Are you sick of AI hogging up all the headlines and sucking up all the bandwidth?

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Well, the answer to that question very. but you'll find it in a free guide that you can get right now at net suite.com slash mike. It's called demystifying AI. It's totally free. It's essential reading for anybody trying to make sense of a future that appears to have arrived yesterday. NetSuite, of course, is the number one AI enterprise resource planning software out there, trusted by over 43,000 businesses. With NetSuite, you can use the AI of your choice.

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that's net sweet dot com slash mike i have a question from rick henderson he says hi mike and chuck i really look forward to listening to your podcast every day tuesday on my way home from work i live in the suburbs of houston and wonder if either of you ever consider fleeing your current states and coming to live in one of the last freedom-loving states such as Texas. I love the word flee.

Flee. It's time to flee, not leave, not vacate. Run for your lives, everyone. Well, I mean, these snatch and grab things are a little freaky, are they not? I'm not about to make a case for staying in California. I'm exhausted by this place. I was exhausted when I was living in San Francisco, and now I've, over in Marin, and I can see San Francisco, and it never looked better from eight miles across the day. I'm angry, really, at the footage. I'm angry at the way the city has just given up. They let

mobs of people run into stores. They've closed over a dozen Walgreens. They're scared to park their cars. It's bad. Is it bad enough to move? Yeah, it's bad enough to move out of the city. Is it bad enough to move out of the state. Look, at this point, there's a pretty good case for Texas. There's a pretty good case for Florida. I won't pretend otherwise. I will say this about California. People tend to talk about it in terms of northern and southern, as though they're two separate worlds. And to some degree, they are. But the real divide is not horizontal. It's vertical. The real two Californias are Eastern California and Western California. And living in Western California is beautiful.

Living in Eastern California is also beautiful, but is very, very different. Unfortunately, we're under the same government. And the problems in this state, from a fiscal standpoint, in my view, affect every California. Look, when Rogan moved, when Tesla moved, so many other companies, so many people, I understand it. Personally, I'm on the road so much that coming back to a place where the weather is typically good, where I can have a chance to recharge is important. And this place where I am right now gives me that. So I'm not anxious to leave it. But man, is there a point where I would flee?

Yeah. It's the same point where I would have quit this podcast had it not evolved. I don't know exactly where it is. But it does feel like it's coming. Like if I really look down the line into the future, it's hard to imagine if things don't change staying in this climate because it's bad in San Francisco. And you know what? It's bad in our office, Chuck. It's not literally in our office. Those people are delightful. But Santa Monica's tough. Last time I was down there, you know, remember we took that burning couch. Oh my God. Gosh. I was walking to the office from wherever I was doing a voiceover.

something. Oh, I was walking from my hotel over to the office, like second in Santa Monica over to Wilshire and Fifth. It's less than three blocks. I saw three things in the course of three blocks about three months ago, and you can go to my Facebook page and see the first thing I saw, which was a couch in flames in an alley with a bureau, a chest of drawers on top of it. A full-on flame with the sirens in the distance and a couple of people gathered around. And the burning couch is leaning up against an electric pole. I mean, this whole thing is the seconds away from all of Santa Monica would have been plunged into darkness, right?

Because that transformer is going to explode and so forth and so on. Yeah. So I just posted a quick picture of me standing next to this random fire in a street in Santa Monica set for no... No, you did a video. I did a video, yeah. Like you were a correspondent. because you ended the video with back to you.

Back to you. Yeah. Reporting live from Santa Monica where everything's gone to hell. Back to you. Yes. But then it got weirder. I walked around the corner and now I'm two blocks from the office and I'm playing a horrific game of hopscotch. But instead of squares painted on a playground, they're just piles of crap.

Human excrement. Piles of crap. Some of which had some needles in them. Which makes it super, you know. This is all over the place. It's really difficult to pass a needle. Let me just say. I don't know this from experience, but how that needle got in that poop is.

It's worse up here. It's so bad up here that somebody, like a couple years ago, put out something called the crap app. And it would tell you in real time where the freshest piles of human feces were in downtown San Francisco. So you can avoid them, presumably. Yeah. Ellison Jones. might want to avoid that for a few hours, folks. That one got pit pretty hard. I like three little

steaming piles of excrement on your phone. I'm not making it up. You can Google it. Same thing's happening in a lot of places. And so as I walk past the flaming couch and I jump over random piles of human excrement, some with hypodermic needles in them, I then pick up the blood trail. And I swear to God, dude, drops of blood going down a sidewalk for about a block and a half. And I I follow them. And they're getting bigger and closer together. And I'm thinking, oh, God, what am I going to find around the corner? And I round the corner and there's nothing there. Just a smear. Yeah. A smear of blood. I have no idea what it was, who it was, what happened. So I have no answers. I don't know who's pooping. I don't know who's shooting up. I don't know who's starting fires and I

don't know who's bleeding out. But I know it's happening a couple blocks from where we work. And that's not tenable. Let me just say that as your friend, you tend to audition these things on me. Like, I got that text of that video of you with the flaming couch. I also got several texts with pictures of people, not just poop in the street, but people pooping in the street. The one I can't forget was the woman, she had like her coat over her head because she wanted to keep her dignity or something, but she's squatting in the street. Yes, I wanted to keep her dignity too. And just so we're absolutely clear, folks, I would never post or share pictures of people crapping in the street.

But I would take the pictures because I don't believe. And send them to me. And I would send them to you. So that I can't unsee these things. I don't want to be the only one to have seen it, A. And B, if you don't laugh, you cry, right? I don't think we should stick our head in the sand about this kind of thing. Hundreds of thousands of people in many hundreds of cities are currently crapping in the streets.

It's happening. And it's happening in ways it did not happen two years ago. It's happening now. We ought not ignore it. I don't think we should start shaming people for doing it, but we can't ignore it. The day you're talking about, I was staying at the Huntley, and I was late, and I was leaving the lobby, and a couple of cops were there. This is a sad story, but I'll tell you because it's true. And one of the cops was weeping.

It's very upset. And I could see that they both recognized me from the... the show. Yes, cops watch dirty jobs. Lots of cops. And I stopped and I said, hey man, this does not look like you're in the midst of a good day. And he said, no, it's a terrible thing. We picked up a kid whose mother had hit him in the face hard, knocked a couple of teeth out. It's a young child, a six, seven-year-old child with a really bad mother. We just saw the mother released, not 24 hours after we picked her up. And I said, she's going to kill this kid.

And if she doesn't, it'll be a miracle. And there's nothing we can do about it. Because the district attorney down there had made some very specific rules. And these cops were following these rules. And it was right in the wake of that conversation that I stepped out the front of this hotel just in time to see a woman.

Now, we're a block from the promenade. We're two blocks from the ocean. We're talking about a zip code that is among the most beautiful on the planet. Yep, yep. In a twinkling, this woman pulled her skirt over her head, squatted in the gutter, and defecated. About five feet from me. Here we are. Today, our brains have to figure out a way to make sense of that.

It's repulsive, it's tragic. You want to help, but you're kind of angry. you're appalled, you're gobsmacked, you're worried. You don't know, you're just not quite sure what to do. At least I'm not. I'm really not quite sure what to do. So if you're me, what you do is you take a quick photo and you send it to Chuck. Who thanks you very much for that.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a long way of saying, I'm sure that happens in Dallas. It's probably happening in parts of Houston. Probably happening in parts of Austin. Is it happening as much? No, I don't think so. Well, while we're on the subject of crap, this just transitions nicely to Mary Weaver Melton's question, which is, whatever happened to selling your crap, collectibles rare and precious?

You should find something from your video slash song with John Rich that you both sign an auction off. I just want to say, Mary, this is a great idea. It is a great idea, and John actually beat me to it. In fact, so there's a song, if you haven't heard. It's called Santa Claus. got a dirty job. And it's a fundraiser, both for Microworks and for John's charity. Anyway, John wrote this song, and it's really a catchy little earworm, and all the proceeds are split down the middle for each of our respective charities. And while we were recording it,

we wrote the lyrics out and basically scored the music, and we made copies of those things. So, yeah, I will make some of those available for purchase, maybe sometime before the holiday. Now, I don't think we're going to part with the Santa Claus suit. That was made by Granny Rich. His grandmother made him this Santa Claus suit, and he wore the overalls in the music video, and I wore the jacket. That's not mine to auction off, and I don't think I will. For the rest of you who are totally baffled as to where this question is coming from, in the early days of micro works, I raised money for our work ethic scholarships by auctioning off the crap in my garage that I had collected over the years from dirty jobs.

Crap stood for collectibles rare and precious. And it was an homage to my years in the home shopping game back in the early 90s when I was selling crap every night in the middle of the night on QVC. Anyway, we raised hundreds of thousands of dollars with these crap auctions and will they come back? Maybe. Will we auction off something from the recording of the song? Maybe.

It's a good idea. I'm on it. Yeah, I like that idea a lot. You know, there's one other thing. There is a fundraiser that's supposed to happen this month or next month, I suppose, which is a little thing called Noble. Yeah, this is a biggie. We've teased it before, but now here, look, I can actually prove it.

This is it. This is a bottle of Noble, Tennessee whiskey. And it is delicious. For those of you listening, just know that Mike is holding up a bottle that says Noble on the front. Thank you, Chuck. And it looks like whiskey. And for those of you watching, it's because Chuck had the good sense to turn this into a video. But Noble was the last name of my granddad, Carl Noble.

Some of you know, Dirty Jobs was a tribute to him. Carl Noble was a tradesman, an electrician by trade, but he could do anything. Fix anything, repair, anything. And when he died, his name kind of died with him. He only had two daughters. Didn't have any sons. And so I thought it would be great to get his name on a bottle of really terrific whiskey. This is five-year-old Tennessee whiskey. Very, very limited in quantity,

but we're going to be raising some money for MicroWorks. Hopefully, in time for Christmas, we've had some supply chain issues. It's been vexing. Bottles come from one place. Labels come from someplace else. Corks, which I've signed, come from yet another place. The whiskey comes from Columbia, Tennessee, just outside of Columbia. It is Tennessee whiskey, and it's great, and the net proceeds

are going to go to MicroWorks. More info on that later this week. It's all happening as we speak, Chuck. In fact, I think by the time this air is the website will be up, noblespirates.com. That's K-N-O-B-E-L-Pirits.com.

We got into it last night. It was delicious. It still is. Wendy Brian wants to know if y'all are actually having as much fun as you both seem to be having while making these episodes. No. Not even close. Hi, Wendy. And thank you for all of your interactions over the years on Facebook.

Of course it's fun. That's actually the job. Like the real job description on dirty jobs anyway was not just to hold your nose and get through it, to figure out a way to like it, to figure out a way to have fun doing, whatever it is. It gets frustrating. There are a lot of technical problems. Chuck is a terrible producer, but his heart's in the right place, and he'll do anything to try and learn. He's an old dog, but he's picking up a lot of new tricks.

We go back now over 40 years, me and this guy. So it's a treat to be able to work on a creative project with somebody that you have that kind of history with. and it's important to stay in on the joke. It's important to have fun with it, no matter how vexing it becomes. And we're both pretty good at that. You know, we have to remind each other from time to time because it is easy to get caught in the weeds. There's a lot going on.

And poor Chuck has been sucked into the miasma of my world in ways I doubt he ever imagined. He's an integral part of the foundation. He's producing this podcast. He works in the office in Los Angeles with Mary and Jade and Laura and he's the odd man out. He's the court jester. People look to him for amusement,

and they expect him to do all sorts of things that he's really not trained to do. So it's been fun to watch him quietly melt down these last few years. Yes. I don't know what this says. Does it say J.L. Green? Which personality traits did you get from each of your parents?

It's a great question. In terms of virtues, My dad is a very patient man. And to the degree that I possess any patients at all, I got it from him. On the downside, I'm not all that patient. But whatever patients I do have, my dad, he'll spend a day putting a washer in a faucet if it takes a day to do it. When he starts a task, he'll never, ever, ever, ever stop until it's done.

And if he says he's going to do a thing, there is no circumstance under which that thing will not get done. A promise made is a debt unpaid. And I think that's a virtue, and that's what my dad's all about. My mom, my mom has a sense of humor that is dry and observational and sarcastic. I think I have a similar sense of humor. It's not as pointed with me because I'm not as nice as my mom. I'm not as sweet as my mom. When my mom says something cutting, it's especially sure.

which she often does. She often does because she's very good at that. She's good at it. She's also musical. This is a funny combination of things. My mom has a great ear. She can play the piano. She can play the recorder. But she has kind of a weak

voice. She can sing. She's always on pitch. She knows where the notes are. But she has a very weak voice. My dad, on the other hand, he can't carry a tune in a bucket. Can't hear the difference between a C-sharp and a B-flat. wouldn't know where to begin, but he's got a big round voice, and he can be really loud

when he has to. That's probably the better answer. To the degree that I'm able to sing at all, I got my dad's voice and my mom's sense of Do, as in Do Ramey Fah, right? So I got that. Pitch, your sense of pitch. Yep. Mom has a good sense of pitch. Dad's got a great voice. Mom's got no voice. Dad has no sense of pitch. Worked out for me. I'm going to butcher this name. Peter Schmuggy is what I think it is. S-C-H-M-U-G-E. Sorry, Peter.

Schmugie? Probably not. It's probably smoo-J-A. Schmugie? Peter Smug-E. All right. What's he want? Let's go with Peter.

He says, I would like to know, given that you could retire and do anything you wanted, what would that be? Well, you know why I like this question, don't you? Yeah, because you've been asking me that same stupid thing. for the last 40 years. What do you want to do? What do you want to do, Mike? That's exactly how I sound. It's actually pretty reductive, Peter. If your premises right, and if I could retire, and if I could do anything I wanted, doesn't it stand to reason that I am doing precisely what I want? This is a tough thing for me to get my head around sometimes, because when you put it to yourself that way, what you effectively do is right.

yourself of any self-pity. You can't feel sorry for yourself if you acknowledge the fact that you don't have to do anything other than the thing you want to do. And so if you're unhappy or frustrated, then there's simply no one else to blame but you. That's a wonderful place to be. I speak for no one but me, but if you do get to a place where you'd,

do have the option of doing anything you want, then the thing you're going to wind up trying to figure out is time. It's going to be degrees. It's going to be balance. If you want to sit on the beach and sip pinia coladas and margaritas all day, you can do that. But if you do it all day, every day, well, obviously that's not going to work, unless you're just truly a lush. I doubt that I'll ever change. I think I... I don't think you will. Yeah. I think you need to do stuff. You need play time, but you need to be active. That's what I see anyway. I think the thing you need and the thing Peter needs and the thing most people need is not a job. It's a purpose. It's some kind of mission. I think that's why most people have families.

I don't have kids. I don't want to say this wrong because I know it's sensitive, but I think a lot of people who have kids have them because they need a purpose. They need to put something in front of themselves. And a kid is an easy thing to do. A kid depends on you. And so when people become reliant on you, then you're not going to get pressed to answer questions like the one Peter just asked. Because you can't do anything you want. You're always going to have these kids and you're always going to have people in your life who depend on you to some degree. And so you're never going to do that kind of navel gazing. It's a little different for me right now because I'm older than I've ever been and I don't have kids. I do have a foundation that matters. I do have friends that matter.

My parents are still here and they matter a great deal. Friends, you know, brothers and whatnot. So it's not like I'm just, you know, out there utterly alone, but there is no excuse. to not do whatever the thing is that I tell myself I want to do. That's the hard part of the question, because I don't always know what that is. I don't have clarity. And so sometimes I just agree to do things because I think I should be busy,

like writing a book, like maybe doing this podcast, like taking the foundation more seriously, and so forth. So the short answer is I'm doing it, Peter. I'm doing it. There's no short answer. There's no short answer. You know what? You don't like it.

Edit it out. You're the producer. I'm going to be done with you in about 15 minutes, okay? I'm going to get on with my life. I'm going to walk up the street and I'm going to have, I'm still on vacation right now. It's the Thanksgiving break. I'm going to go have a cocktail with a neighbor, okay? And you're going to sit down and you're going to edit this.

And if you find that I've gone on too long at some point, well, go ahead and fix it. I don't care. It's on you. You tell Peter. that his question didn't deserve that level of introspection. You do it. Okay. Here's a question that I think is really interesting.

And I'm curious myself, because I can think of a lot of things that could be the answer to this question, but I want to hear what you say. Nick Tony. Hmm. That's so close. So close. What is the situation where you were most concerned for your safety on any of your programs? and he puts in parentheses besides the shopping network gig, ha-ha. Actually, you know, there was a stalker back in those days who gave me some real concern.

It's such a good question because there were so many times on dirty jobs, so many times, you know, where I could hear the ice cracking beneath my feet as I moved forward. We can talk about window washing. on the main island. In a Bosen's chair in Hawaii? Yeah. It's the Bosen's chair that keeps haunting me. Getting your ass in a Bosen's chair and being lowered off of a gantry crane

about 450 feet up in the air is... It's a thing. The pucker factor is real. But sitting in a Bosen's chair and being lowered into the shaft of an opal mine is in some ways the opposite, but in some ways, it just depends. Do you have a problem with heights or do you have a problem with tight spaces? Either way, the Bosen's chair is not your friend.

I was equally worried, being slowly lowered into a shaft, the diameter of a manhole cover in Cooper Pedy, Australia, in my search for Opels. That's how they prospect for Opels. dig these prospect shafts. They're about 60 feet deep and they lower you into them. And about 40 feet down, you look for these trace veins of sandstone or soapstone because in between those veins, you typically find the opal. And if you find the opal, then you dig another prospect shaft and then another after that. And if you can confirm the existence of a vein of opal running through the Australian Outback, then they bring in the heavy machinery and they dig out these giant

caverns and then they go in and they get the opal. But the business of being lowered down into those holes. I've written about it before. I've talked about it before, but just in terms of my own mortality, it's very difficult to trump that. When you're standing on the bottom of a shaft that's been dug with these things, they call them Caldwell bits. So it's a 60-foot shaft straight down in the outback, giant pile of dirt next to the shaft, and they set up a rig, and they lower you. When you're standing on the very bottom of that shaft,

looking up at this tiny blue speck that is the sky, and you feel the dirt walls on either side of you, touching your shoulders, and the dirt in front of you, touching the brim of your hard hat. And it's just you down there with the dirt. this little GoPro. You can't get a cameraman down there. So it's just you. You're filming the scene. And then some Australian 60 feet up starts sprinkling water on you, you know, pretending they're peeing on you because they're Australians and they're very funny this way. Right.

I just remember thinking at that moment, I'm utterly at the mercy of the next earthquake that might go through the outback, which interestingly happened about two weeks after we left. And of course, your mind is full of the stories they tell you before you go in. the tourists who fall in there every year because they don't fill the holes in, Chuck. They don't fill the holes in. What is up with that? Well, there's no OSHA. So it's just thousands of holes over 100 square miles of opal fields.

And they dig and they dig and they just leave them there. And so every year... Well, there must be big piles of dirt right next to the holes, right? Yes. And so that's definitely a tell, but not always. And every year... Someone should come along. And, you know, somebody should, but they don't.

Not long before I got there, there was a story in the paper. A tourist was found who had gone missing for a couple weeks, found him at the bottom of an opal shaft. He had gone out early one morning alone with his camera looking to get the sunrise, right? And the sun comes up and he's backing up, taking his pictures. He goes in headfirst, 60 feet down. But he bounces off the side like a pinball going down. So by the time he hits, doesn't kill him.

breaks his shoulder, shatters his clavicle. So he's upside down, alive. They said they figured he lived for three days. Down there, upside down, looking up, watching the blue dot go pink and then dark. And then again, pink in the next morning and then blue and then just waiting for help that never came. This is horrifying. Hey, man. This is my answer.

I'm trying to give an honest answer. Having that story in my brain as I was lowered into the aforementioned shaft in Kuber Pedy, Australia, that I think is probably when I felt the most helpless. My guest today, Tom Albinis, is an American giant. And I'll tell you why. Tom understands on a fundamental level that the. The business of mining is a non-negotiable prerequisite of our civilization and our economic independence, just like the business of making things.

American Giant knows this, which is why they committed themselves 16 years ago to make all their excellent clothing right here in this country. It wasn't easy, but they did it. They sourced locally grown cotton, and they built factories in towns across the nation where they could hire hardworking locals who cared about making a quality product. And then they went about the business of gently reminding people that when you buy a piece of clothing from American Giant, you're not just buying a high-quality sweatshirt or T-shirt or another pair of jeans. You're investing in a local supply chain.

You're supporting communities from the Carolinas to California. And you're getting a piece of clothing that won't just survive the wash. you're getting a garment that'll get better with age. Check out their high-quality staples, hoodies, teas, denim, built to be worn year after year at American-giant.com slash mike. It's quality you can feel and a true American success story that you can be proud to support. Use code Mike.

Get 20% off your order at American-giant.com slash Mike. American Giant, American Made. Giant American Made. Also being attacked by a shark, that was a good one. Didn't think I was going to make it out of that. I remember that and I thought, I can't believe I'm seeing this. I know I've talked to you, so you're alive, but how are you alive? This is crazy.

You're being big by a shark. You're like 60 feet underwater. Yeah. That was Shark Week, 2006. There were a lot. And I can't believe Dirty Jobs is coming back, shameless plug, January 2nd, Sunday. Yeah, but it is. It is, and it all still hurts.

You know he's got a dirty job? Santa Claus. Santa Claus got a dirty job. Santa Claus got a dirty job. And it does it all night long. All night long. Charlotte Nelson asks. And folds of honor.

Charlotte Nelson asks three quick rapid fire questions. What would be a good theme song for your life? Oh. A theme song for your life. There was a tune from Porgy and Bess called I Got Plenty of Nothing. I got plenty of nothing And nothing's plenty for me.

I got my gal, Got my mule, Got no misery. There's a time when I really loved the fact that I didn't own much and it made me happy. I got plenty of nothing. Today, though,

I'd go with That's Life, Sinatra. I've been a puppet, a poet, a pirate, a pauper, a pawn and a king, been up and down and over and out, but I'll say one thing. It's just a great song, man. Anybody who lives long enough will look back and go, oh yeah, ups and downs and that's life, right? A rich pageant. That is life. Yes, it is. Do you sing in the shower? I do. Question two. In fact, I was just in a shower in the hard rock hose. down in Hollywood, Florida. I was there for the Patriot Awards.

And this shower, for whatever reason, there was nothing special about it. But the size, unbelievable. It was like singing in a studio with headphones on with all the reverb and all the stuff they give you. Unless it stood in that thing for a half hour, singing everything that came to mind. I sounded great.

And I was clean. Question three, what is the most useless talent you have? I know the answer to this. Do you? It's the same as mine. Oh, yeah. We can snap our fingers under our chins in a way that makes people think we're cracking our knuckles. But you know what?

It's a trick question. There are no useless talents. There are none. Talent by definition is a thing that at least has the potential to be useful. to entertain at a minimum, right? If you have a talent and you deem it useless, it's simply because you haven't applied it properly. Just at dinner the other night, I was out.

You've seen this, they call it a magician's pass with two corks, right? You've seen me do the thing with two corks. Yes, yes, yes. So this is a stupid talent, right? But not really. What you do is you put a cork in the web of each hand. between your thumb and forefinger, and you squeeze it with the web of your hand, and you have to transfer the cork in your right hand to the thumb and forefinger of your left hand.

At the same time, you transfer the other cork from the web in your left hand to the thumb and forefinger of your right hand. But you can't touch either cork except on the top and bottom with your opposing fingers and thumbs. It seems impossible, but it's not. There is a way to do it. And so I was showing somebody this little trick at dinner the other night, and that opened up a conversation about magic. And that led to a conversation about deception. And that led to a conversation about truth. And that led to a conversation about the difference between a swindle, to go back to our earlier guy, and reality. What's real and what's not?

It was a really lively debate, a really lively conversation. What would a good magician today, how would he or she be seen? If David Blaine, for instance, was doing stuff David Blaine does, but not as a magician, but rather as somebody who purported to be from another planet or a god, the business of being able to use your talent to make somebody think that you are something you're not, something more than a mere mortal. Well, that's been going on forever. So, talents and tricks, those are two houses on the same street. What you do with your tricks?

You could take your talent and become a magician. Or you could take your talent and become a politician. Or you could take your talent, become any number of things. So I'm not so sure, Charlotte, there's any such thing as a useless talent. Except maybe for answering a short question over the course of five minutes. That was exactly what I was going to say, man. God. That's talent.

Bless. That's all I got. America. I know, but it's like you exhibit it all the time. I never know when you're done talking. I'm never done talking. That's ultimately the reason. If you want to think about starting to land this plane, then that's the reason that we're

doing an extended format of a podcast. Because I love to write, but it took a lot of time. And in the end, it was five minutes of stuff. And it was great. We're trying to figure out a way to live and work in this weird medium. I can't do much. There's a long list of things I can't do. But I can tell you a story.

Well, you sure can talk. I can talk. If we can somehow get away with talking in this format, in a way that the advertisers continue to be pleased by and people continue to listen to, well then, by God. I'm not saying it's the only thing I'm going to do. No. But it's one of the things for sure.

fair enough what else you got anything you're gonna love this question Mike this is one you've never heard before Katie Griffith asks Mike what is the dirtiest job you've ever done oh god Katie sorry hon but you're out you're banned

you're off the Facebook page you're banned from the by don't say that I'm kidding it's a good and fair question I often joke about the number of times it's been asked but the truth is how lucky to have a show that inspired so many people

to ask me the same question over and over and over again. This show is called Dirty Jobs. We did 300. Of course, people want to know. It's a logical question. Very logical question. Here's the honest answer, Katie. When I get that question today, whether I'm on the Tonight Show or doing this podcast with my buddy, what happens in my mind,

picture like the wheel of fortune. No, picture a wheel at like, what are you doing in the church basements, Chuck? It's like the wheel of chance. Yeah, the wheel of chance. There you go. Except rather than numbers on it, there are about 30 jobs, all of which could justifiably be a genuine answer to that question. Replacing a lift pump in a wastewater treatment plant, mining for opal, washing windows. Well, that's the one you say you would never want to do again.

When people say the worst job, you say that's the worst job. you say that's the one I would never want to do again. The truth is, what's your favorite job and what's your dirtiest job and what's the worst job often wind up being the same kind of thing? Because the best jobs are the ones that stick with you for the longest. The dirtiest jobs, yeah, some of them are just straight up filthy. Mrs. Frazier's exploding toilet was a great dirty job. But the ones that really, really stick with you, of course,

are the ones with the people that you can't forget. So pig farmer in Vegas is a very dirty job. And preparing all of the uneaten food from the Vegas buffets for consumption by pigs is filthy and disgusting and you'll never forget it. But more than that, you'll never forget the guy who introduced you to that whole world. His name was Bob Combs. And so on this particular day, that's my answer to you, Katie. Pig farmer, Vegas, 2006, Bob Bowms. Combs.

Very good. Emily Watson wants to know. What are your thoughts on Snicker Doodles? Emily Watson, the actress? Yep. Apparently still. Emily Watson is an amazing actress. Australian, I think.

Last time I saw Emily Watson in a film, have you ever seen this? It's called The Proposition with Guy Pearce and Emily Watson. I don't believe I have. One of the single best westerns I've ever seen takes place in Australia. Probably not far. from the Opal Mines. That'd be a nice way to wrap this up. What was the question? What's your feeling on Snicker Doodles? Oh, I'm for them. I mean, I don't eat much

dessert anymore, but I'm not going to come out against Snicker Doodles. I've said some pretty harsh things about California in this conversation. I don't need to make any more enemies. Any more enemies? I mean, what is it? I mean, it's chocolate. It's basically a Snickers bar in a cookie, right? No, you have no idea what a Snickerdoodle is, do you? Is it a dog? Or is that a snicker? But no, I believe, I mean, you know what? Maybe she is talking about a snickerdoodle dog. I think the most common answer for what is a snickerdoodle is a cookie.

Snickerdoodle. And it's a cinnamon cookie. There's no chocolate in it. All right, no, I'm not going to come out against the snickerdoodle. I'm just, I'm not eating a lot of dessert these days. If in fact she's referring to the dog, then all I'll say about that is they are delicious. Oh, come on, man. Speaking of delicious, Chris I.O.

I mean, I don't know where these names come from. Chris I.O. Is that her last name, I.O? It's I literally an I and an O. Chris I.O. Says, Mike, will you and Chuck come to my house for dinner? We need more info, Chris, honestly. First of all, how to pronounce your name.

What are you serving? Where do you live? And honestly, be careful what you wish for. Because I am certainly the kind of guy. I've popped up at viewers' homes on more than one occasion for dinners. I popped up at viewers' weddings. I was invited to a wedding years ago. I went.

I'm sure we would do that, but I will warn you. My friend Chuck, for as long as I've known him, and Chuck, correct me if something has changed, but you still have a tapeworm, a large one that lives in your lower GI tract that enables you to eat the average person out of house and home. Pretty much, yeah. When I was growing up, the famous story of your grandmas, mother the first time that I shared a meal with her thought that something was wrong, that I was

malnutritioned at home because I was eating so much there. My sister's husband's parents, when I ate with them first, referred to me as the brother who eats. So, yeah. It kind of goes back to my other point. If you have a trick, if you have a talent, and you present it in such a way, you could fool people into thinking you're something other than human. And that's what you've done with food. You have the ability to put so much of it into your body to just destroy it, turn it into a paste and somehow get it down your well-muscled throat into this seemingly bottomless cavity that we call a stomach, but it's more like a reuben, you know, a reuben, an abhumase, the cavity in a cow that allows for just such endless storage. My grandmother probably thought you had come from another planet

and possessed a special talent. This is a true story. I can't imagine anybody still listening to this, but many, many years ago, we were just out of high school, and Chuck stopped over to my grandparents' house and demolished. This was Thanksgiving right around this time of year, and he loaded up his plate in a way that you'd swear you were looking at a skit, like on Saturday night lives. Like, nobody's going to eat that. You can't eat all that. He ate it. And then he did it again. He filled up that plate. And my poor grandmother's just sitting there sipping on her, rye whiskey, just shaking her head. Carl, have you ever seen anything like it? They couldn't believe it. It was like a clinic. Chuck put on an eating clinic. And then we drove over to see our buddy,

Bobby Kaufman. We were singing at the time in a barbershop quartet. They had Thanksgiving dinner, too, of course, and we went in and sat down, and Shirley says, oh, would you guys like something to eat? Now, it's all I can do, not to throw up in my hands at this point. I've eaten a lot, and I've eaten maybe a third of what Chuck has eaten. So I say, no, no, no, thank you. Maybe a little glass of wine, you know, a DHS tea or something. Chuck is in the kitchen pulling the ass out of that turkey. I mean, there's stuffing, there's gravy, there's sweet potatoes, there's cranberry, There's cornbread, there's white meat, there's dark meat, there's another layer of gravy. And just again, he sat down and creamed it.

It was amazing. And you can still do it. It's truly a miracle. You're not five, six hundred pounds. You're eating me out of house and home here. I don't know. It's like, Chuck's coming. Oh, God.

All right, what are we going to do? You know, in the old days, we'd kill the fatted calf. Here, you just go down the whole. foods with a larger than average cart. Oh, I laugh because it's so true. It's so true. It's true. How do you know when you're done? I mean, you must have felt full before,

but how do you know when you're like, that doesn't, that's no reason to stop eating from eating. Yes, exactly. I was raised by people who went through the depression, okay? They were like, you eat until there is no more food in front of you. I told you before. My grandmother used to say to me, oh, Chucky, don't make me wrap up these last three pork chops. I've already eaten maybe half a dozen. I don't know.

Yeah, but it's not like she said, oh, Chuck, please don't not suck the marrow out of these bones of these pork chops. It'd be a shame to throw out bones with marrow still in them. Okay, Nana. Gone. Gone.

Here's a fun question, Brian or so. Let's go brand an episode, question mark? Oh man And of course I bring it up Because we just had a conversation about how this sort of What would you call it? A meme? It's more than a trope

It's more than a meme A trope Yeah But it's a bit of a troll But it's clever And it's If you don't know I mean surely everybody knows

But we can't assume With an audience this vast There's bound to be somebody in there That does know what we're talking about But let's go Brandon. Sure. Has become code for F. Joe Biden. And F. Joe Biden, of course, is code for FAC Joe Biden.

But I don't say on this podcast. I do, but I want people to understand. A reporter, I think for ESPN or NBC or somebody, was covering a race. And a guy named Brandon was the driver. While she was interviewing Brandon, the crowd, a rather large crowd, started chanting Joe Biden. And it was crystal clear. Everybody could hear it. This made the reporter nervous. So she said, oh, Brandon, these people love you. You can hear them chanting. Let's go, Brandon. Well, of course, that's not what they were chanting. But that little bit went out live. And I don't know who

first decided that let's just go ahead and use that as code for what the people were really saying. And now it's gone everywhere. And I think, The purpose of our conversation, Chuck, when this came up, my point was, this is clever. It's not rude. It's not as many have suggested a giant coarsening of the culture. I don't see it as any of those things. Politics aside, this is a reaction to the times that we're living in. And the times that we're living in right now are forcing lots of people on both sides of the aisle

to look at a thing or hear a thing and be told that what they're seeing, and what they're hearing is not real. And you can't do that to people indefinitely and expect them not to push back somehow. You can't tell people that the border is secure and then show them images of tens, thousands of people flooding over it. You can't tell people that the evacuation of Afghanistan was a success and then show them people falling off of a plane.

You just can't do that. and you can't ask people who are watching a NASCAR race at home, who clearly hear the crowd yelling, fuck Joe Biden, to pretend that what they're really hearing is, let's go, Brandon. I think what's happened is people have just become sick and tired of being told that what they're seeing and what they're hearing

is not what they're seeing and hearing. And this is the perfect trope. I don't think people who yell at it, yell it are necessarily enemies of the president. I think they're enemies of being told that what they're seeing and what they're hearing isn't real, that it's somehow a figment of their imagination. People are sick of that. I think people have a legitimate gripe that they were irritated with.

And I think it started at NASCAR and at college football games. I'm not exactly sure. But it's a coarse thing to say. He is the president of the United States. Whatever displeasure and his numbers are very low right now. Whatever displeasure you have, this is not a great thing to be saying. Now people have found a way to say the same thing without being coarse or crap. Without saying it.

And I think that is what makes it really funny. Yes, it's hysterical because we're doubling down on the lie. We've gone so far through the lie When you come out of the other end of a lie You find the truth Lies are circular by and large So you get into one and it rattles around for a while And you come out right where you started

It's like so okay if you're going to tell me That what I'm really hearing is let's go Brandon Then I'll live with that Because now you know what I'm really saying I think what's happening with our language is amazing and it's not good. I think that with higher education, for instance, I rant about this all the time with MicroWorks.

You can't talk about higher education without implying that all other forms of education are lower. And that's crazy, because apprenticeships are not lower education, and community college is not lower education. It's different. It's not about higher or lower. We let people take the language and do this goofy crap with it,

And then we're left with a real rhetorical problem. We just saw it happen with essential work. Let's celebrate essential work. But guess what? When you do that, you're telling 40 million or so people that they're non-essential. And that's not good. It's not good for the economy. We can see what happens when 40 million people sit out for a year.

The wheels come off the bus. So essential is a tricky word. Higher is a tricky word. Infrastructure is a tricky word. I used to know what it meant. And then the infrastructure bill came along. And people want to talk about maybe $1.2 trillion is too much. Maybe we need more. Maybe we need less. But how can you debate an infrastructure bill when at the same time people are telling you that, no, no, infrastructure is not limited to bridges and roads and the electric grid. It's not limited to runways and plumbing. It also includes free college. It includes free health care, reparations for slavery. We can talk about any of those things. That's all fine. But if you're now telling me that we have to do it in the context of infrastructure,

I'm going to say, let's go, Brandon, because that's crazy. You're making me crazy. You can't just redefine a word. Miriams, the dictionary people, for God's sakes, last week officially changed the definition of anti-vaxxer to include people who are against mandates. that's amazing. And that just happened. So I'm pro-vaccine. I got my vaccines. I recommend people get vaccinated. But that doesn't mean I'm pro-mandate. But now Miriams says it does mean that thing. That's what Let's Go, Brandon, is. It's a pushback, not just against the current president. It's a push-back against this incredible way. of no, no, no. That word does not mean what you think it means. This all comes back to Diego Montoya and a princess bride when Wallace Sean says, inconceivable. And he says, you keep

using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Well, guess what? You know what? Let's go Brandon means? Now you do. And that's how the whole conversation punches straight through to the other side. That's how you get to the other side of the lie. You say, okay, we'll pretend that the audience isn't saying that. We'll pretend that they're saying what you're telling us is what they're saying. But deep down, you know what they're saying. You know. You know. Tell that joke, because that's what it is. It's that same joke. Let's leave this whole thing with a joke. And I know you're going to have to bleep it because you're still at that stage and your producer life. But let's leave him

with a joke. Okay, so a guy's walking down the street on his way to work and he comes across a pet store and there's a parrot outside and the parrot looks at him and goes rah. Hey buddy. Thank you. It's terrible. It goes off indignant. Next day, parrot

walking by looks at him and goes, hey buddy. Fuck you. Ra! This happens every single day and he's starting to get a complex. So he goes into the store on the third day, the parrot says this to him and he goes into the store and he goes up to the guy who owns the store and he says, this parrot out there is really, really annoying me. He's telling me to go F myself all the time and I can't take it anymore. So the pet store owner goes to the parrot and he says, listen,

you better be nice to this guy when he walks by. If I hear you say that one more time, I'm going to fricassee your little butt. You understand me? Ra. Okay. So the next day the guy walks by and he looks over at the parrot, the parrot is where he always is. And the parrot goes, rah! Hey, buddy. And the guy looks at him. And he goes, you know. That's it. You know. Hey, man. You know. That's the answer to Let's Go, Brandon. We just did an episode on it. Congratulations. You got your wish. We just literally did 15. minutes on this thing. And I'm glad we did because that's what it is. It's a way of saying exactly what you want to say without saying anything close to what you mean. And yet you're

still understood, hey, buddy, you know. Let's go, Brandon. Unbelievable. It's a good one. Well, to sum up, it's been a year. The podcast is now whatever this is. I feel like we've, gone full circle. Here's to another year of more of the same. Thank you for impersonating a producer. I'll continue to impersonate a host and let's see what 2020 brings, my old friend. All right. I'm in. Thank you for all your questions, everybody. Of course, you're really the boss. We all work for you. Sorry we couldn't get to all of them, but we had some fun. I appreciate it. See you next week. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Granger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers

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